M
Maddeline
Guest
Original poster
Setting : forests around the Great Lakes region, October 9th, 2203. Winter is setting in, heavy snowfall, no crop yields, and human desperation at an all time high.
Plot, short: Civilization has long since crumbled, a side effect because it thrived. You are just trying your best to survive in a harsh world.
Plot, very long:
Human science in the fields of artificial biology and medicine have hit their apex, and to test their shiny new syringes, project ANKH spearheaded by DARPA funding set out to create super soldiers. The side effects were almost not worth the price, with cut corners and design flaws highly apparent due to a massive budget consumption and the limits of intellectual expansion into new scientific fields. The project was an extreme success, with each soldier recieving a tailor made injection of engineered virus and viroid agents that implemented the various stages of body modification to be carried out by the individuals own bodily processes.
The result?
Human beings with carbon nanotube muscles, making them almost as strong as elephants, with more bodily durability and flexibility than their respective bones and cartilidge. 1/4 carbon nanotube Reinforced cartridge, to allow wider range of motion, agility and most importantly, durability. Extremely heightened regeneration, allowing fatal wounds to be healed in a week or two as long as excess calories are provided. Reflexes that were increased so fast that reaction times reached the biological limit of 0.13 seconds across the board for visual, auditory and touch stimuli. Age was no longer an issue thanks to the regenerative Synthetic proteins and tailor made viral agents containing a perfect replica of the subjects DNA the day the first blood samples were taken. Disease struggled to infect the somewhat biological cell make up of the test subjects.
Where did it go wrong?
While the side effects like increased calorie count, intense tiredness after a day without sleep despite requiring only eight hour of sleep per week for peak physical fitness, an inability to reproduce between subjects and the inability to reproduce non-clones when subjects attempted procreating with normal human beings and worst of all the inability to vent the excess body heat released by the artificial enhancements in an efficient way (severely limiting potential output not for lack of ability but entirely because of the likelihood of sudden passing out due to heat exhaustion) were all horrible and made the enhancements barely worth it, the real problem was Michael Somare. His parents were born in Papua New Guinea, and he secretly had the Kuru prison disease in his system. The prion, altered by his artificial augmentations, became a global disease that spread like a virus and could cause death within ten years, leaving its afflicted the last years of their life in extreme dementia and Alzheimer's like states, rambling and mumbling to themselves before their brains ceased to function.
Project ANKH survivors were used briefly to prevent global disaster following the large human population die off, shutting down nuclear power plants world wide or welding sewer exit ports, before one day...they never heard back from command.
From the decades and then centuries that followed, societies arose following borderline insane and infectious people. The number of infected people's is now incredibly low, and human population has dipped down so low that there aren't even enough people to find out how many people are left. The social contract has long since regressed.
It is said that to the east of North America, there the old world builds an army spearheaded by a warrior king. It is whispered that he is in fact also an Unkillable or Sage, some of the terms attributed by tribals to surviving Project ANKH test subjects. For most however none of that matters, as surviving in this far post apocalyptic world is hard enough thanks to a random technology gradient, lack of social trade, extremely varrying languages and cultural identities, the harsh climate of an almost ice age and the even more harsh artificial animals which litter the landscape.
Some such as the Torvosornis Utahmimis and Torvosornis Tyrannomimis are trainable beasts of war and burden while still a nightmare to encounter in the wild, while others are completely useless or untamable. This world is extremely harsh to humans, and it will take everything you have to survive.
_____________________________________
Character sheets for Tribals, Subjects and companions :
• Homo Sapian, tribal
Name:
Age/birthday:
Gender:
Appearance:
Clothing/Gear: (If a tribe is known for their clothing or armor, then your character can easily make it if they have the tools. Having only one set of clothes and no back pack for example would be lethally stupid and potentially lethally gross.)
Backstory: (History with the tribe and/or companion animal, why they would want to leave or stay, open mindedness or close mindedness, etc.)
Abilities/Weapon proficiencies: (Gets to include tribe weapon proficiencies and skills while being able to have a handful of personal skills. Include survival, war and academic skills too, though don't forget these are tribes led in multiple times throughout their history by literally insane people so their education and skill set is likely limited unless a good backstory reason is given.)
Tribe: (see list of tribes and descriptions in the next post to pick)
Companion name: (don't fill out if there isn't a companion animal)
• Homo Deus, Test Subject
Name:
Age/birthday: (add 911 years to whatever their age was when they received their injections, with none older than 40 at the time of injection unless they were special forces with an age waiver)
Gender:
Appearance:
Clothing/Gear: (given the almost 1,000 years of experience, extra strength and durability, a large backpack with 100lbs of clothing, weaponry, tools, etc. wouldn't be a stretch.)
Backstory: (what have they been doing between their ascent into super humans, the fall of civilization and now? What's the personality been like compared to before they were experimented on, given a life time of hardships and tragedy? These people would likely be so mentally broken or scarred at this point that it's a miracle they aren't sociopaths...or maybe yours is.)
Abilities/Weapon proficiencies: (All ANKH subjects were extremely intelligent former or active US military at the time of injections, so whatever branch and unit they were attached to would've burned many useful skills and ideas into their minds. Be sure to include anything they picked up on over the years, too.)
• Artificial Animal Companions
Species: (see next post on species list)
Name(s):
Age/birthday: (given their immortality, use Hatchling/baby, Adolescent, Subadult and Adult or use direct years along with the above age titles)
Gender:
Appearance: (include weight, height and length if possible)
Backstory: (in respect to their past if they had one and their time with their current owner/master/companion)
Abilities/tricks: (anything deviating from the normal species abilities and/or tricks taught by owner/master/companion. A Tyrannomimis for instance can't learn cute tricks easily, but can accept a variety of simple to complex verbal, such as trigger words and phrases, or physical commands, such as pulling on feathers to give direction while riding or hand signals, to understand strategy in battle or hunting, while a Utahmimis has similar potential but requires more dog-like commands and can have some less direct or aggressive tricks and training which would make an all around more supportive animal. Another example being Dakotamimis are small enough, smart enough and dangerous enough that you could have doubled down on attack and guard training or more passive training- meaning you could either use a trigger word or whistle with a hand motion and sic a battlebird on an enemy for it to dispatch silently or use as a rapid response animal for ferrying messages or medium weight equipment.)
• Natural Companions
Species: (whatever the scientific species name for your desired real world animal is. For example, any dog breed or wolf breed would be Canis Lupus Familiaris which roughly translates to familiar canine wolf.)
Name(s):
Age/Birthday:
Gender:
Appearance: (include weight, height and length if possible)
Backstory: (in respect to their past if they had one and their time with their current owner/master/companion)
Abilities/tricks: (anything deviating from the normal species abilities and/or tricks taught by owner/master/companion. A hawk or eagle species would be great for hunting medium sized game, retrieving pelt or scouting for danger while a German Shepherd would be a great guard and attack dog and has the ability to perform tricks)
Plot, short: Civilization has long since crumbled, a side effect because it thrived. You are just trying your best to survive in a harsh world.
Plot, very long:
Human science in the fields of artificial biology and medicine have hit their apex, and to test their shiny new syringes, project ANKH spearheaded by DARPA funding set out to create super soldiers. The side effects were almost not worth the price, with cut corners and design flaws highly apparent due to a massive budget consumption and the limits of intellectual expansion into new scientific fields. The project was an extreme success, with each soldier recieving a tailor made injection of engineered virus and viroid agents that implemented the various stages of body modification to be carried out by the individuals own bodily processes.
The result?
Human beings with carbon nanotube muscles, making them almost as strong as elephants, with more bodily durability and flexibility than their respective bones and cartilidge. 1/4 carbon nanotube Reinforced cartridge, to allow wider range of motion, agility and most importantly, durability. Extremely heightened regeneration, allowing fatal wounds to be healed in a week or two as long as excess calories are provided. Reflexes that were increased so fast that reaction times reached the biological limit of 0.13 seconds across the board for visual, auditory and touch stimuli. Age was no longer an issue thanks to the regenerative Synthetic proteins and tailor made viral agents containing a perfect replica of the subjects DNA the day the first blood samples were taken. Disease struggled to infect the somewhat biological cell make up of the test subjects.
Where did it go wrong?
While the side effects like increased calorie count, intense tiredness after a day without sleep despite requiring only eight hour of sleep per week for peak physical fitness, an inability to reproduce between subjects and the inability to reproduce non-clones when subjects attempted procreating with normal human beings and worst of all the inability to vent the excess body heat released by the artificial enhancements in an efficient way (severely limiting potential output not for lack of ability but entirely because of the likelihood of sudden passing out due to heat exhaustion) were all horrible and made the enhancements barely worth it, the real problem was Michael Somare. His parents were born in Papua New Guinea, and he secretly had the Kuru prison disease in his system. The prion, altered by his artificial augmentations, became a global disease that spread like a virus and could cause death within ten years, leaving its afflicted the last years of their life in extreme dementia and Alzheimer's like states, rambling and mumbling to themselves before their brains ceased to function.
Project ANKH survivors were used briefly to prevent global disaster following the large human population die off, shutting down nuclear power plants world wide or welding sewer exit ports, before one day...they never heard back from command.
From the decades and then centuries that followed, societies arose following borderline insane and infectious people. The number of infected people's is now incredibly low, and human population has dipped down so low that there aren't even enough people to find out how many people are left. The social contract has long since regressed.
It is said that to the east of North America, there the old world builds an army spearheaded by a warrior king. It is whispered that he is in fact also an Unkillable or Sage, some of the terms attributed by tribals to surviving Project ANKH test subjects. For most however none of that matters, as surviving in this far post apocalyptic world is hard enough thanks to a random technology gradient, lack of social trade, extremely varrying languages and cultural identities, the harsh climate of an almost ice age and the even more harsh artificial animals which litter the landscape.
Some such as the Torvosornis Utahmimis and Torvosornis Tyrannomimis are trainable beasts of war and burden while still a nightmare to encounter in the wild, while others are completely useless or untamable. This world is extremely harsh to humans, and it will take everything you have to survive.
_____________________________________
Character sheets for Tribals, Subjects and companions :
• Homo Sapian, tribal
Name:
Age/birthday:
Gender:
Appearance:
Clothing/Gear: (If a tribe is known for their clothing or armor, then your character can easily make it if they have the tools. Having only one set of clothes and no back pack for example would be lethally stupid and potentially lethally gross.)
Backstory: (History with the tribe and/or companion animal, why they would want to leave or stay, open mindedness or close mindedness, etc.)
Abilities/Weapon proficiencies: (Gets to include tribe weapon proficiencies and skills while being able to have a handful of personal skills. Include survival, war and academic skills too, though don't forget these are tribes led in multiple times throughout their history by literally insane people so their education and skill set is likely limited unless a good backstory reason is given.)
Tribe: (see list of tribes and descriptions in the next post to pick)
Companion name: (don't fill out if there isn't a companion animal)
• Homo Deus, Test Subject
Name:
Age/birthday: (add 911 years to whatever their age was when they received their injections, with none older than 40 at the time of injection unless they were special forces with an age waiver)
Gender:
Appearance:
Clothing/Gear: (given the almost 1,000 years of experience, extra strength and durability, a large backpack with 100lbs of clothing, weaponry, tools, etc. wouldn't be a stretch.)
Backstory: (what have they been doing between their ascent into super humans, the fall of civilization and now? What's the personality been like compared to before they were experimented on, given a life time of hardships and tragedy? These people would likely be so mentally broken or scarred at this point that it's a miracle they aren't sociopaths...or maybe yours is.)
Abilities/Weapon proficiencies: (All ANKH subjects were extremely intelligent former or active US military at the time of injections, so whatever branch and unit they were attached to would've burned many useful skills and ideas into their minds. Be sure to include anything they picked up on over the years, too.)
• Artificial Animal Companions
Species: (see next post on species list)
Name(s):
Age/birthday: (given their immortality, use Hatchling/baby, Adolescent, Subadult and Adult or use direct years along with the above age titles)
Gender:
Appearance: (include weight, height and length if possible)
Backstory: (in respect to their past if they had one and their time with their current owner/master/companion)
Abilities/tricks: (anything deviating from the normal species abilities and/or tricks taught by owner/master/companion. A Tyrannomimis for instance can't learn cute tricks easily, but can accept a variety of simple to complex verbal, such as trigger words and phrases, or physical commands, such as pulling on feathers to give direction while riding or hand signals, to understand strategy in battle or hunting, while a Utahmimis has similar potential but requires more dog-like commands and can have some less direct or aggressive tricks and training which would make an all around more supportive animal. Another example being Dakotamimis are small enough, smart enough and dangerous enough that you could have doubled down on attack and guard training or more passive training- meaning you could either use a trigger word or whistle with a hand motion and sic a battlebird on an enemy for it to dispatch silently or use as a rapid response animal for ferrying messages or medium weight equipment.)
• Natural Companions
Species: (whatever the scientific species name for your desired real world animal is. For example, any dog breed or wolf breed would be Canis Lupus Familiaris which roughly translates to familiar canine wolf.)
Name(s):
Age/Birthday:
Gender:
Appearance: (include weight, height and length if possible)
Backstory: (in respect to their past if they had one and their time with their current owner/master/companion)
Abilities/tricks: (anything deviating from the normal species abilities and/or tricks taught by owner/master/companion. A hawk or eagle species would be great for hunting medium sized game, retrieving pelt or scouting for danger while a German Shepherd would be a great guard and attack dog and has the ability to perform tricks)